Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-09-24

Given to hospitality.
His discourse was as follows:
There is danger that the multiplied
ton OF large and commodious hotels
in our towns, and cities. and villages,
will utterly exterminate that grace
which Abraham exhibited when he en-
tertained the angles, and which Lot
showed when he watched for guests at
the gate of the city, and which Christ
recognized as a positive requisite for
entering heaven, when he declared;
II was a stranger and ye took Me in
/ propose to speak this morning OF
the trials and rewards of Christian
hospitality. The first trial often comes
in the within and eccentricity OF the
guest himself. There are a great many
excellent people who have protuber-
ance OF his position, and sharp edges OF
temperament, and u~npliabillty of char
acter, which makes them a positive
nuisance in any house where they stay.
ON short acquaintance, they will begin
to command the household affairs,
order the employees to unusual SER
vice, keep unreasonable hours, use
narcotics in places offensive to sensitive
nostrils, put their feet at unusual eleva-
tions, drop the ashes of their Havana
on costly tapestry, open bureaus they
ought never to touch, and pry into
things they ought never to see, and pc
come impervious to rousing bells, and
have all the peculiarities of the gor-
mandizer or the ~dyspeptic, and make
excavations from poor dentistry with
unusual implements, and in a thou
sand ways
AFFL4CT III HOUSEHOLD
which proposes to take care Of them.
Added to all, they stay too long. They
have no idea when their welcome is
worn out, and they would be unmoved
even by the blessing which my friend
Gerrit Smith, the philanthropist, asked
one morning at his breakfast table, on
the day when he hoped that the long
%protracted guests would depart, say
ing: 80 Lord, bless this provision,
and our friends who leave us to-day:"
But, my friends, there are alterations
to be put on their side o. the scale.
Perhaps they have pct had the same
refining influences about them in early
life that you have had. Perhaps they
have Inherited ~eccentricities that they
cannot help. Perhaps it is your duty,
by example, to show them 81 better
way. Perhaps they are sent to be a
trial for the development of your pa
tiencc. Berhaps they were to be in
tended as an illustration Of the oppo-
site of what you are trying to inculcate
in the minds of your children. Per-
haps it is to make your home the
brighter when they are gone. When
our guests are CHEEKY, and fascinating
and elegant, it is very easy to entertain
them; but when we End in our guests
that which is antagonistic to our taste
and sentiment, it is a positive triumph
when we can obey the words of my
text and be ''given to hospitality
THE LABOR AND COST OF HOSPITALITY.
Another trial in the using OF this
grace is in the toll and expense CT ex-
ercising it. In the well-regulated
household things 90 smoothly, but now
You have introduced a ,oreign element
into the machinery, and though you
~ stoutly declare that they must
Ike things as they find them, the Mar
IA will break in. The ungovernable
~,oye. The ruined dessert. The joint
that proves to be unmasticable. The
delayed marketing. The perplexities of
q eaterel. The difficulty of doing proper
work, and yet always being presentable.
Though you may say there shall be no
care or'anxiety, there will be care and
there will be anxiety. In 1904 the
captain-general provided a very grand
entertainment, and among other things,
he had q fountain in his %garden--a
foun lain of strong drink. In it were
four hogsheads of brandy, eight hogs.
heads of water, twenty-five thousand
lemons, thirteen hundred weight OF
Lisbon sugar, five hundred pounds OF
grated nutmeg, three hundred toasted
Biscuits, and a boat built on purpose
was placed in the fountain, and a boy
rowed around 1t, and filed the cups OF
the people who came there to be sup
Piled. Well. you say, that was a lux
urious entertainment. and of course the
man had no anxiety; but have to tell
you, that though you had, or propose,
an enter sainment like that, you have
anxiety. In that very thing comes the
Divine reward. We were born to serve;
and when we serve others,
WE SERVE GOD.
The flush on that won.an's cheek as
she bends over the hot stove, is as
sacred in Gods sight as the flush on the
cheek of one who, on a hot day.
breaches the Gospel. We may serve
God with plate, and cutlery, and broom
as certainly as we q serve Him with
No nj u. hook and liturgy. Margaret,